I suppose the full Spanish name of this film should be Siesta de
Suciedad.

Dirt nap.

Cuz' that's what it is about.

You see, it is yet another of those re-tellings of
Ambrose Bierce's "An
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", a famous story about a
Southern civilian who was hanged by the Union Army during the Civil
War. The noose snaps, he falls into the creek, escapes ...

... to make
a short story even shorter, it turns out that none of that happened.
The entire story of his escape is simply a free association of the thoughts that go
through a man's mind as he is about to die. The story ends with his
neck snapping because he is still in the noose.

Since Owl Creek is recognized as one of the great stories
in the history of American literature, I suppose that just about
everyone in the United States had to read this story in high school,
along with The Outcasts of Poker Flat, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,
The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Monkey's Paw, and two or three of
Poe's most famous stories. Even if you have read nothing else in
your life, you have probably read most or all of these classics,
through the educational force-feeding process.
Here is the
complete Bierce story if you are one of the eleven people in the
country
who has never read it.

When the short story was originally written, the surprise ending probably
packed a pretty good punch. Even when I was a kid, I was impressed
by
Rod Serling's version on The Twilight Zone. It aired just
before I had to read the story for a sophomore English class, so I
wasn't expecting the ending, and it really worked for me. (Note that
this was not a Twilight Zone original, but an award winning French
short film which had been adapted by the Twilight Zone people,
adding Serling's customary solemn pontifications at the start and finish.)

But that was nearly a half a century ago, and
the ol' "dying man's last thoughts" gimmick has been worked and
reworked so many times that it is now almost as hackneyed as "I woke
up, and it was all a dream." I guess the best version of it in
recent years was Adrian Lyne's "Jacob's Ladder", which succeeded
because of Lyne's masterful control of the film's atmosphere, and
because of the meticulous attention paid to nuances and details. It
is one of the few "surprise ending" films that you can watch and
re-watch, just to see all the clues planted into the story. When you
watch it a second time, you will be kicking yourself for not
realizing that you had never seen the hero's post-Vietnam life. That
era was never pictured as it
really was, but rather as someone in the late 60s would have
envisioned the future.

Oh, well. I'm straying too far from the topic, which
is Siesta, yet another version of Owl Creek Bridge.

Ellen Barkin wakes up on a runway in Spain, covered
with blood. She is wearing only a red dress, with no underwear. Her
memory of the previous days is unclear. She is haunted by the
nagging feeling that she has been involved in a murder.

As it turns out, she was right. Unfortunately for
her, the murder was her own.

That's the short version.

The longer version of the story is that she is some
kind of female Evil Knievel, and is planning a stunt so daring that
she may not survive. It seems to involve a free-fall into a volcano,
so I can certainly understand her trepidation. Since the stunt may
take her life, she decides to settle some accounts before she
attempts it. She visits an ex-boyfriend in Spain to make peace with
the love of her life. He's sorta happy to see her, but his new wife
is decidedly not.

In the course of Barkin's adventures in Spain, many
confusing and arty things happen. Poseurs pose. Eurotrashers act
trashy. Spain's only taxi driver is always everywhere when a ride is
needed. (He doesn't even need a road.) Everyone is far too mysterious, and all characters possess
far too many eccentricities. Everyone skulks around, shifts his eyes
beadily, and obfuscates. The film makes Mulholland Drive seem as
simple and straightforward as The Sound of Music.

All the confusion is, of course, theoretically
resolved when we find out that Barkin is already dead, and that we have
therefore been watching the jumbled thoughts of her final moments - a
hodge-podge of memories, fears, fantasies, and free associations.

Bah, humbug!

NUDITY REPORT

Ellen Barkin is naked from every angle.

Gabriel Byrne shows his buns, and a very brief,
distant frontal.

Some trivia:

Siesta had a good cast, although they were not used
especially well.

The film co-stars Gabriel Byrne, who romanced Barkin
on and off screen, and later married her. (The film was made in
1987. They married in 1988, divorced in 1993.) I think Byrne has a
powerful presence on screen, but I'm not too sure I liked his
Spanish accent, which seems to have been developed by watching the
greatest cartoons of Mel Blanc.

It also features Jodie Foster. Jodie was a child and
adolescent star from 1976 to 1984 (ages 14 to 22), and then became a
major adult star in the period from 1988 to 1994 (ages 26 to 32).
Siesta was made in the lull between her two periods of success, when
her career was truly in the doldrums and she was looking for an
adult identity. When she made this film she was trying to gets a
character actor vibe going, and performed her role with a stuffy
upper-crust British accent reminiscent of John Cleese as a female
impersonator.

The rest of the cast is filled out by some
top B-list actors: Isabella Rossellini, Martin Sheen, and Julian Sands.
I must say that there is absolutely no doubt that Martin Sheen is
the father of Emilio Estevez. DNA tests will not be required. If you
watch this movie and forget the production year, you could swear it
was Emilio!

Siesta did not have an especially good director.

The director, Mary Lambert, had achieved a modicum
of success directing music videos before attempting to make the move
into feature films. Lambert's video for Madonna's Material Girl was
in the top twenty when Slant Magazine chose the Top Hundred Videos
of All-Time in 2003.

Lambert's feature film career has been notably less
successful. Here's how it looks, ranked from best to worst:

It appears that Ms. Lambert would make an
excellent subject for Dr Peter's disciples when they make their
next study of the Peter Principle. It appears that Music Videos
represented her highest level of competence, and that her skill at
making them got her promoted to theatrical films, which represent
her personal level of incompetence.

Does the film have positives? You betcha. It has
a Miles Davis score and Ellen Barkin naked. Within about three or
four minutes of the film's start, Miles is playing some sad
refrains while Barkin gets stark naked and sunbathes in close-up.
You can find plenty of reasons to criticize this director, but you
certainly can't say she was unaware of the strengths of her
material!

Of course, if Ellen Barkin had never removed her dress, this
movie would be unbearable. But the fact of the matter is that Barkin
did remove that dress. She got naked several times, exposing every
nook and cranny of her tremendously well-toned body. Therefore,
I am suggesting that this film is not without great entertainment
value, since Barkin is one of the sexiest and most athletic women in
screen history. So watch it for that alone. Just make sure you have
your remote handy, so you can fast-forward through the crevices
between Barkin's nude scenes, and thus avoid any contact with the
poor man's David Lynch movie which resides in those crevices.

I am assuming, of course, that you are a male with at
least some level of testosterone in you, in which case you
undoubtedly would like to see Ms. Barkin naked. If that does not
interest you, avoid this film unless you are a Miles Davis fanatic because,
except for Miles and Barkin, it has nothing else of
sufficient merit to warrant an investment of your time.

DVD information is available here or by
clicking on the picture above.

Tuna's
notes

Siesta (1987) is a Zalman King production. This time, he
replaced the sad sax with a wailing Miles Davis, a huge improvement in
my opinion, and starred Ellen Barkin. She gets very naked in good light
in the first few minutes, then gets very naked in poor light near the
end. Nothing of importance happens in the middle 78 minutes of this 90
minute film. It is yet another variation on the old "thoughts of a
person as they are dying" plot, but more clumsy and more arty than most,
in true Zalman King style.

It was directed by Mary Lambert, who is not well respected as a
director. I was probably the only person who liked her Grand Isle,
which, as far as I know, is not yet on DVD. She does understand how to
get women naked and take their pictures (Ellen Barkin here, Kelly
McGillis in Grand Isle).

Siesta was nominated for two worst supporting actress Razzies. If you
have never seen this plot device, the ending could surprise you, almost
making it worth watching. Otherwise, watch the first and last 10
minutes, and rest assured that you have given it all the time it
deserves.

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by genre fans, while
C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for
fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is
recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and we think that most of
them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know
that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below
C-.

Based on this description, this is a D. It is a
poor movie, possessing that worst possible combination of
incompetence and pretentiousness. On the other hand, the music
is Miles Davis, and Ellen
Barkin gets completely naked, and has never looked better.